Tag Archives: comics

Before I started Mechanaflux, I was working on this, my first 3 issue mini-series, Displacement, with Michelle Balze. Now, that comic, after many years, was submitted and accepted to Comixology. You can download the entire digital graphic novel for only $4.99!

What is Displacement? Well, read this picture that I have captured for posterity:

The End #5 is now available on IndyPlanet. You can purchase the issue as a physical order for $2.99, or a digital comic for $1.99.

Issue #4 just went through, and will be up shorty. Eventually, in just a month or two, I will have all 5 issues of The End set-up for physical order and digital download. After that, it’s only a matter of making sure that all 5 are available on all platforms the other issues are already on.

My 5th issue of The End is now available for Print-to-Order on IndyPlanet. And finally, after a long wait, so is #2. But where is #4? I was working on 4 & 5 at the same time, and 5 just happen to get finished sooner. And don’t worry, as each issue is stand-alone. You can expect to see The End #5 premiere at

Is there any way to survive the coming end of the world? The theme for this issue is Survival. Previously, people escaped onto a space station, but now one man has a radical idea. He thinks he can escape the destruction of the world and be the only remaining person left alive by simply going into the deepest caves. Left with only his thoughts, he starts his decent.

For Mechanaflux #1, I had put the transition from the original screenplay to finished comic book to show how Mechanaflux changed between all the versions. This time, I’m going to chose a page from Issue #2 and do that again. This page is the arrival of Redwing the dragon from my initial draft.

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

Five more Mecheers emerge to their left as they run by a building.

Jackson, Cory, and Arad pick up their pace and run closer behind Gluss, Darius and Maria. They reach the edge of the town and run into the Metal Plains. From behind, they see over fifty Mecheers marching toward them.

JACKSON

How are we supposed to avoid so many of those things?

ANGLE ON: Ariel shot of the group with sunlight shining on them. A shadow covers them as something flies over their heads, then leaves.

DARIUS

We don’t.

A giant red dragon (four stories tall) hovers above the ground, then lands in front of the group. The dragon’s neck sways upward and coughs. He coughs again, then fire breathes from his mouth into the air. Jackson, Arad, and Cory stare at the dragon, eyes wide open. Jackson covers the boys as if the dragon will attack them.

As the dragon lowers his head, the boys notice that he wears glasses. The dragon speaks with an intelligent British accent.

REDWING

That insidious metal dust can’t be good for my lungs.

REDWING

Darius old friend, I see you’ve gotten yourself in a spot of trouble. Take cover.

Darius, Gluss, and Maria run behind Redwing’s leg. They motion for the others to follow. Arad, Jackson, and Cory look at the dragon. Then, they look at the army behind them. They immediately run behind Redwing.

Redwing summons a breath in his throat, then lets loose a humongous amount of flame.

ANGLE ON: The Mecheers walking forward toward Redwing as fire engulfs them all. The camera pans back to show more Mecheers, and even some buildings, getting taken out by the fire.

Redwing breathes smoke from his mouth then moves his hand up to his face.

REDWING

One day Darius, I hope you won’t need my violent skills.

REDWING

Gluss, are you alright?

GLUSS

I’ll be fine.

REDWING

And who are these young friends of yours?

Redwing walks away from them, turns his body around, then lays down so his head will be closer to them.

END SCREENPLAY

After Redwing appears, he suddenly attacks the Mecheers. What, did he destroy all 50 of them I mentioned? Later, I’d make them run away, because Redwing couldn’t be all powerful in the plot (as seen in Issue #3). Plus, him attacking the Mecheers in my comic in 3 different instances would get repetitive. Also, my dialogue continues for 2 more pages. I won’t bore you with it, but will tell you most of it was cut.

COMIC BOOK SCRIPT

Page 6

5 – Arad, Jackson, & Cory are now standing at the edge of town, in the Metal Plains. Buildings are at least 100 yards away from them.

JACKSON: This is ridiculous.

6 – Jackson turns toward where they ran. In the distance, there are at least 50 Mecheers walking toward them.

ARAD: Come on, how are we supposed to avoid so many of those things?

7 – ANGLE ON: Ariel shot of the group with sunlight shining on them. However, there is a dragon shaped silhouette directly above them.

8 – CLOSE-UP of Darius’ face. She is smiling, while still covered by the shadow above.

DARIUS: We don’t.

Page 7

EXT: TOLT – OUTER EDGE OF THE CITY – (METAL PLAINS)

1 – A giant red dragon (Redwing) appears before the group. Redwing wears glasses. Redwing shouldn’t be so large that he appears as if he can take anything. He should be smaller than most sizes you see on dragon books (or Dungeon & Dragon’s manuals)

2 – Redwing coughs. Some fire emerges from his breath, but doesn’t reach the ground. It stops short of Arad, Jackson, & Cory, scaring them.

Panels 7, 8, & 9 are the same long line and should be together at the bottom. One of the kid’s heads should be at the bottom of each panel.

7 – To the left, on Panel #7, an army of Mecheers approaches them.

8 – Directly in front, is the giant Red Dragon.

9 – To the right, is a piercing metallic storm tornado.

I had considered putting blue energy (Darius’ sleep spell) seeping and increasing with each panel.

END COMIC BOOK SCRIPT

The original wasn’t dramatic enough. Redwing met the cast outside the city, and it was supposed to indicate that the Mecheers were on their way, but not so close that they can’t all talk for a bit. I increased the the intensity a bit by having them coming closer quicker. Then, in the actual comic below, you will see that the Mecheers were just already in their face. I did just notices that both times I had Redwing cough fire and scare the kids, but there wasn’t enough space to do this in the actual pages. He also didn’t acknowledge Gluss’ injury, but then that was very minor and not important enough to keep.

THUMBNAILS

I then wrote on the thumbnails some small corrections. My biggest concern was how Redwing was going to talk to them after landing if they were completely surrounded by Mecheers. Solved that by having him land directly over them and causing a shockwave that knocks most of them down. Hopefully he doesn’t appear too powerful, as his skin isn’t immune to the Mecheer’s blasts. Also, after this phase, my artist thought of a way to make the final panels more suspenseful, which we’ll see next week.

FINAL ART

Here are the final pages (minus the lettering). Hope you enjoyed this step-by-step journey.

The End #4 & #5 are nearly complete, so I am going to post to you a page from the first story drawn by Sonia Liao. A group of astronauts hijack a space shuttle and make off for a space station, where they hope to avoid all the comets completely and return to Earth later. Now, they are still alive, but was survival at any cost worth the price?

I have always thought that one of Marvel’s missed opportunities at a movie during the start of their films with X-Men & Blade, was Deathlok. Who is Deathlok, and why do I think he is one of Marvel’s better chances for a film adaptation?

Deathlok would be a perfect movie for this reason: When Michael Collins, a well-known scientist and pacifist, discovered his employeers were behind illegal weapons designs, he finds his brain placed in a cybernetic weapon known as Deathlok. However, he is able to gain control of this weapon. Realizing what he has become, Michael must wage two wars, an external one to gain his original body against the evil corporation that turned him into what he is, and an internal battle against his own AI, that merely wants to kill everything in it’s way to help Collins accomplish his goal.

Do you not see the potential here? You have a pacifist trapped in a death machine. Said death machine is always telling Michael the easiest way to accomplish his goals, but he constantly tells it to explore other, non-lethal options.

Throughout the comic, much of the dialogue is like this:

MICHAEL: They’re shooting at us. We need to stop them.
COMPUTER: Recommend rapid fire shot to all 5 targets.
MICHAEL: No, find another way!
COMPUTER: There is only a 17.80% chance you will survive without using lethal force.
MICHAEL: I don’t care!

You already have a conflict, where one man refuses to give into the easy tools at his disposal and chooses to live life according to his beliefs, no matter what has happened to him he refuses to compromise his beliefs and take the easy way through life. And what do most heroes do? They don’t kill. This writes itself.

Then, there’s the hope. You see, Michael Collins wants to be human again, but is it even possible? Well, his original body is still around, being kept alive in a tube, and his former employer holds the keys to making him human again. But will Deathlok kill just to get his life back? Well, of course he won’t, but you need to make it appear that he might compromise his beliefs near the end of the movie. There could even be a tragic ending where he sacrifices his body to not kill someone, but in the end, despite the fact he can never be human again, he still has his soul, and that’s all he needs to remind himself of who he once was.

So, there you go. You have a pacifist struggling with the fact he is now a weapon of death. He has to fight an AI that would rather kill to keep itself alive. He has to fight evil henchman and some robotic boss at the end that threatens to kill people somehow. He has to fight his desire to compromise his beliefs to be human again. And don’t forget his wife, who he can never visit because of what he has become (who might or might not be kidnapped by the corporation to convince him to do what they want). And, just imagine how many unique scenes you can create that GO AGAINST the tradition action movie. You have set-ups for normal shoot-outs, but Deathlok finds a way to win non-lethally. Get crackin’ Marvel!

There are many Deathlok characters in the marvel universe, and this one is based on the 1990’s version, who had his own series for 4 years.

Finishing out the last of the Spider-Man Anniversary issues, I look at Spectacular Spider-Man 189 & 200, which examines Peter Parker (Spider-Man), Harry Osborn (The Green Goblin) & Mary Jane’s relationships to each other, and ultimately leads to Harry Osborns death. Surprisingly, there are many allusions to child and spousal abuse that are really serious that I was surprised Marvel let go through when I read these again.

Displacement, the experimental diary comic I started (and my first comic ever) has finally compiled it’s 3 issue mini-series into a graphic novel. The entire comic has been re-done with new panel borders to make the comic easier to read. Oh, and guess what?

Thanks to everyone who has made this possible; my artist, Michelle Balze, cover artist Amanda Kahl, John Bintz for all the questions he answered when I started asking how to photoscan stuff and put them in a comic, Michael Auger for compiling the individual issues together, and Jason Axtell for compiling the graphic novel, in addition to touching up and re-designing all the borders.

Below is the original cover for Displacement, which came out in 2009. The older, single-issue comics were only available on ComixPress.com, which no longer exists. The graphic novel is now the only version available; even future digital versions will use this as a base.